


Atoms

by the_consulting_linguist (xASx)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: And a kilt, And his heart is John, Bisexual John Watson, Casefic (kinda), Cuddling & Snuggling, Demisexual and Gay Sherlock, Developing Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, John Watson is the trashcan we need him to be, Johnlock utopia: no irene no reichenbach, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, Past Traumatic Experience, Post-Episode: s01e03 The Great Game, Scotland, Sheep are involved, Sherlock Being a Drama Queen, Sherlock Holmes is Bad at Feelings, Sleepcute, Slow Dancing, Tenderness, The phone is the heart, They're both so protective of each other I can't, They're trying to communicate, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, in that order, valentine's fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-25 18:10:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17730149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xASx/pseuds/the_consulting_linguist
Summary: John closed his eyes. Sherlock’s breaths were like the tide beside him, deep and even. He started to count them. There was a music to them, all its own.“I was afraid”, Sherlock murmured in the darkness.Fear. Coiled and dormant. Waiting. In the image of a swimming red dot.In the thrum of his heart.He sought Sherlock’s hand, until their palms lay tangled above the sheets in the empty space between them.When he woke up in the morning, 221B was empty.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chainedtothemirror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainedtothemirror/gifts).



> This ficis a collab with my dear friend chainedtothemirror to celebrate a Johnlockian Valentine's Day! She has illustrated each chapter with a piece of beautiful artwork, I am so humbled and happy!
> 
> So, this is set after TGG, so none of the nasty things happening post S1 exist in this fic. It is just two pining idiots finally coming to theire senses and admitting their feelings, and just how badly they want to be together. Lots of fluff. They are smol and soft. You know me. Enjoy!

**Prologue**

***    *    *  
**

“Dance with me”

A resigned smile on the Cupid’s bow lips. A fold in the universe itself.

“You don’t know how to dance, John”

A truth without a sting. A fact. That was how the brilliant mind of the man beside him saw the world. Facts, evidence, pieces of a puzzle, quivering secrets under his fingertips.

There was no place in that sensitive instrument for grit, no room for a crack in the lens of his vision.

That was how the mind of the man beside him worked.

But it was not this man’s _mind_ that he wanted.

He was tired of facts anyway.

 _No, I don’t_ _know how to dance_ , he thought. _Not with_ your _steps_.

“Then show me”

_And I’ll show you how to follow mine._

* * *

 

__


	2. Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! (the prologue was short, we know, but it was a teaser of sorts ;) )

The memory was etched behind his eyelids. He woke with it, choking to free himself from its grasp. He fell asleep with sweat prickling the back of his head, his heart a pause.

There was a shadow over them that even daylight did not scare away. As if they were trapped in that moment. In its eerie, watery blue light. Their everyday life tainted with it. Blurry. Underwater.

Banter over breakfast was fragmented, forced to resemble what their normalcy used to be. Take-out dinner was left to go cold, as the telly droned on. There were no more nines, or eights. When Lestrade called for a seven, Sherlock hang up before the man could finish explaining. Said a flippant ‘sounded boring’ to John’s unasked question. John knew it was a lie. As easy to tell as the tension in Sherlock’s shoulders, the frown clouding his eyes over. There was no sparkle in them anymore, the naughty glimmer when he solved the puzzles no one else could.

Once, Sherlock was late to return from the store. John had paced and paced until worry was gnawing him raw. He had just rushed to the steps of 221B, a parka over his pyjamas and his pistol into its pocket, phone sweaty against his ear as it was ringing Lestrade’s number, when he saw Sherlock turn around the corner. Tesco’s orange plastic bags, their handles digging into his wrists, stood out even more against the dark wool of his coat. “I got milk”, he said, when he looked up at John from the bottom of the steps. Neither of them mentioned the incident again.

John knew that what he should be afraid of was the memory of a sleazy smile on that wicked face, the head turning this side and that to taunt, like a serpent’s before it strikes. Instead, all he saw was the pale neon dot swimming over the waves of Sherlock’s raven curls. In his dreams, that dot transformed into a bullet that slammed into the skull in an explosion of bone and brain and gore that spattered his own face and hands as he watched, his screams clogging his throat to silence.

John Watson had seen men die before. Good men, brave men. Had seen their laughter be cut in two, the fear in their eyes, the emptiness left behind, after. No such image had lingered so, and for so long, in his mind.

It went on night after night. Until the night the dreams stopped.

There was no preamble. No other change. It seemed as if they simply left, and stopped coming back.

One such night, when John woke of thirst instead, he walked down the steps to the sound of Tchaikovsky. The melody, whiny and sorrowful and lulling, wove a veil of calm around his mind.

As it must have done every peaceful night before it.

Sherlock’s silhouette stood out against fickle streetlight. A single lock of hair swirled over his temple, quivering with the movements of his arm as the bow dragged across the strings. The violin was cradled securely under his chin, his gaze was trained on it as if he were shaping every note out of thin air with all his skill; with the tenderness of two hands pushing a tiny bird ready for its first flight from their safety into the air. He stopped playing when he saw John. “I could not sleep”, he said.

_That night, and every one of John’s peaceful nights before it..._

John took a step closer. “Can I stay?”

“Yes”

He could not see the iridescent eyes from such a distance. And Sherlock kept them away from him, turning towards the light.

 

##  *** * ***

He sought the sound since then, staying awake long past midnight to listen to the solemn serenade. Sought it as he sought Sherlock’s voice, his sounds in 221B. The traces he left behind, a still turned-on Laptop, a half-empty mug, his dressing gown folded over the back of his armchair. John found himself wanting to run his fingers over his imprint of the world, over the proof that he was alive.

No matter what Sherlock said, it had all stopped feeling like a game.

The adrenaline of the chase felt more like lead pumping through his veins than blood.

There was copper on his tongue, his throat scraped raw from gasping on the cold air. The lanky form was ahead of him one moment, each stride swallowing the distance to their target, and frozen to the spot the next.

John did not stop.

In hindsight, he knew he should have. But countless times before they had split the pursuit; him on the tail of the suspect, as Sherlock swerved through back alleys and crammed streets for a shortcut. John did not process fast enough that Sherlock did nothing of the sort this time.

The man they were hunting down was trying to climb on the wall that divided the old streetway in two when John burst into the alley at his heel. He whipped around, pinning John down with a stare that was all white, like a cornered animal. John braced. But as his opponent lunged for him, Sherlock slammed into the man’s side with a grunt, sending them both to skid on the ground.

Wool and denim kicked and rolled on the gravel, as Sherlock tried to force his opponent into a headlock. But the man was stronger. Sherlock took the blows with his lips were pulled back in a snarl, and then returned them as hard as if he wanted to crush the man’s skull. John could only watch, his fists coiled aimlessly at his side: Sherlock was not stopping.

He did not stop at the pleas and dull cracks of breaking cheekbones, did not stop when the other man’s efforts died out. Did not stop until the thug was unconscious, his bashed face barely recognisable through the blood.  

The Yard and paramedics arrived shortly after.  

Statements taken and arrests made, Sherlock’s grazed knuckles bandaged, they returned home in silence. Sherlock’s hands were shaking still when he tried to unlock the door. John had to do it for him.

He could ignore tonight’s incident. Perhaps he should. But he could not bring himself to do it. Instead, he had Sherlock sit on the couch, wrapped him in a blanket, and made them tea.

“You shouldn’t have done that”

Sherlock’s gaze was locked on the window, his tea cooling in its cup, untouched.

John swallowed. “Poor guy had just stolen some trinkets and whatnot.  He was not even armed. could file a lawsuit against you, you know -and guess who’s going to have to deal with that… Lestrade won’t be happy”

Sherlock hummed vaguely.

John could feel that his mind was working. But it was far, far away from the here and now. Far away from him, as if it had put up a barrier between them. No matter how deep in his Mind Palace Sherlock had been before, he had never shut John out so completely. He decided to leave him there. Give him space.

He was not expecting them to talk for the rest of the night. Or for the melodies of his violin to make an appearance. He lay in bed on his back, trying to reconstruct them from memory. But they were hollow when not made by Sherlock’s hands.

It must have been past midnight when his mattress dipped. John’s eyes snapped open, only to see Sherlock looking at him.

Looking at him as if he were but another puzzle piece he could not yet quite figure out. “I can’t think”, he said.

“Yeah, not the best way to wake someone up” John rubbed his eyes. They softened when they took in Sherlock’s miserable state. “What’s wrong?”

Sherlock only grimaced in response, and tapped his index on his temple.

“Noisy up there, hm? Why?”

Sherlock shrugged.

“Does looking at me help?” He uttered it as a joke, but something about Sherlock’s expression made him regret it. “Want to stay?”, he heard himself ask.

“I-”

“I don’t mind, it’s just creepier if you’re staring down at me like that. At least lie down”

He did. John moved towards the to the edge of the ¾ bed to give the taller man more space, and let him settle. With some shuffling, they both fit, lying on their backs, what space was left, empty between them.

John closed his eyes. Sherlock’s breaths were like the tide beside him, deep and even. He started to count them. There was a music to them, all its own.

“I was afraid”, Sherlock murmured in the darkness.

Fear. Coiled and dormant. Waiting. In the image of a swimming red dot.

In the thrum of his heart.

He sought Sherlock’s hand, until their palms lay tangled above the sheets in the empty space between them.

When he woke up in the morning, 221B was empty. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 


	3. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They are getting there.... Sort of!  
> Sheep, John in a kilt, and hint hint some progress, along with a very confused and gay-panicking Sherlock, are all involved in this chapter.

Before Moriarty, he would not have worried. Sherlock had a knack for disappearing with no warning. He could be gone for hours, sometimes for days. And John had grown used to it. Can’t catch the wind in your fingers, after all.

But this time, it wasn’t like that.

John tried going about his day, tried to ignore the absence, in the hopes that then it would stop as abruptly as it had begun.

It didn’t.

He spoke with Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, too. Neither had seen nor heard from him. The black pit inside him grew. He phoned Molly, but she told him that Sherlock had not passed by St. Bart’s either.

John waited, watched the bleak winter sun dim and fade. Nightfall felt like the end of a countdown. Sherlock was gone for twelve hours, and if there wasn’t reason to worry before, well it was now.  

He texted. Called. Over and over. The messages were returned, undelivered, and the automated dialling machine answered his calls.

With the earth crumbling beneath his feet, he began searching. Sherlock’s laptop was gone. As was the small carry-on suitcase he usually took with him when travelling or staying away for a case overnight. The door to Sherlock’s bedroom wasn’t even closed. John turned on the light and rushed to the wardrobe, throwing it open, out of breath. The sight was the world grinding to a halt; there was no order to the way clothes had been removed from the hangers, the shirts and dress trousers that had fallen from them lying limply on the floor. The sock index was chaos. John’s hands were ice.

_Where are you?_

He wanted to punch a hole in the wall. Punch a hole through Sherlock’s face.

He rummaged through the contacts on his phone, trying to decide who to call -Lestrade, again? London’s hospitals, one by one? They’d think he was crazy, and Sherlock might not even be in London, he could be anywhere- _red. That same, red dot. ‘John-’. The whistle of a bullet._ With a cry muffled in his fist he hurtled his phone, the blasted, useless thing on Sherlock’s bed, his breaths a whirlwind in his chest, the world rushing past him like a freight train and he was rooted to the spot, helpless, _drowning_.

 _Where are you, you bastard, where -god if something has happened to you, god no, please, please god, fuck’s sake Sherlock, I’ll kill you, you insufferable, impossible twat-, why are you doing this to me, why now, why are you_ doing _this to me, I hate you I hate you I hate you-_

The world slowed down. Slowed. Then stopped.

_The frightened question in Sherlock’s eyes when he aimed at the Semtex vest, when he tried to be brave for them both. His own silent reply._

_Together._

“No. I don’t”, he murmured. “I don’t hate you, damnit. I really don’t”

He turned his head. Looked at his silent phone lying on the navy-blue duvet of Sherlock’s bed.

_Afghanistan or Iraq?_

John inhaled slowly, experimentally. To see if he could. Let the air go again. It cleared the fog in its way.

_Here… Use mine._

He smiled.

Somehow the puzzle was complete, every piece slotting into place.

He sat on the bed, and reached for his phone. He knew what to do. He knew why.

“Mycroft. Where _the hell_ is your brother?”

 

##  *** * *  
**

 

On Lestrade’s case, the one Sherlock had turned down almost immediately. The seven.

The call to board the plane sounded over the murmurs and conversations of the passengers around him, and John stood up from the uncomfortable plastic seat, stretching his tired legs.

The case… Wealthy family in Scotland, their daughter receiving threatening messages blackmailing her for a while. Past lover, of course, who everyone feared would try to harm her now, during her engagement party. But why this was a seven, Sherlock had not told him.

It was not the first time Sherlock was leaving him behind for a case, or told him its details only after it was solved. As the plane took off, John wondered if it was sane at all, going to find Sherlock like that. If he hadn’t taken him with him, then he probably just did not want him there. Maybe he was there under a disguise, and John would blow it all up with his unexpected arrival.

John propped his fist on his cheek and gazed idly out of the window, at the wavy, rolling expanse of white beneath them.

He could remember the cadence of Sherlock’s breaths. The warmth of his bandaged palm in his. It unsettled him, yet urged him on, while making it impossible to gauge what next. As impossible as it had been to just wait in 221B.  When he knew why it was the deadly red dot that haunted him, and not the slimy words whispered in his ear, not the insane eyes and snake-like grin.

Not that this knowledge would guarantee anything for him, in the end. No. That is not how any of this worked; after all he knew his friend, his flatmate, better than the palm of his hand. But if they were still in this together, the two of them against the rest of the world… Then he could take no more of this. Together they were better than apart. They had proven that already. In the very least, he wanted to make Sherlock to see that.

 _I was afraid…_  

One bumpy landing, three bus rides, and a sore backside and stiff shoulder later, he finally found himself in front of the restored building of the family’s manor. It was built on a gentle hill, at the foot of a more mountainous area some miles only away from Oban, and was bordered by pasture, pockets of forest, and scattered village homes.

He was shown in by a member of the house staff, and soon a young woman came to find him. She introduced herself as Mairi Boyd, and he soon gathered that she was the one for whom the party was being organised. Her handshake was firm, and her mouth curved rather than smiled, but her eyes sparkled.

“I am here with a friend. Sherlock Holmes?”, he replied, when asked if he was here for the party, or to see Mairi’s parents.

“Oh”, Mairi said with a frown.

“My name is John. John Watson”, he explained, even though he had a feeling that she already knew that.

“Oh. You’re the one who… You’re colleagues, right?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m the only one who can stand him, you can call us that, yeah”

“Who is it this time, sweetheart?”, a man popped his head into the room. He must be a little older than Mairi, his hair greying at the temples, his face stiff with coarsely refined features. When he saw John, something changed in his expression. “Who’s that?”

“Sherlock Holmes’ colleague. They always do come together after all”

“Indeed…” The man introduced himself as David Walker, Mairi’s fiancé. “Good thing you’re here. It is a rather distasteful situation”, he added without preamble.

“Of course”, John nodded sympathetically, left hand flexing at his side.

“Well, got to leave you now, if this party is to ever run smoothly -Mairi, your father asked to talk with you when you are available”, David’s voice was heavy with resigned impatience. John watched as the man took his leave, Mairi smiling brightly after him. When she turned to him, however, her expression was serious.

“So… Sherlock?”, John said, clearing his throat.

“He’s not, um. Here”

“What do you mean ‘he’s not here’?”

“Well you know why I called him here. He went out. Investigating. Though what he is investigating where he’s gone, I have no idea. He left not ten minutes before you arrived”

“What do you mean?”

Mairi just raised her shoulders and pursed her lips in a you-won’t-believe-me-if-I-tell-you gesture.

“Where _is_ he?”

 

##  *** * *  
**

 

When he had been given the directions, of course he had to pretend he had understood every single word and could find the way himself, thank you very much. He always accused Sherlock of stubbornness and here he was, being just as idiotic as the man himself.

_Pot, meet kettle._

The gravel path upwards followed a thatch of forested land for a mile or so, heading towards the pastures. It wouldn’t have been difficult to follow at any other time of day, but it would be dark soon, and the angle was steep, making his bad leg throb with phantom pain. He took out his phone and typed another message, just in case his git had decided to turn his mobile phone on.

 

**Where are you, you utter moron?**

The message went through.

_Regrettably, I have no idea -SH_

**Describe to me what you can see, you wanker.**

_John, how good are you with members of the genus Ovis? -SH_

**What?**

_Sheep._

**?**

_I am lost. And currently in a paddock. With sheep._

_All I can see is sheep._

_John hurry, I think they are eating my coat_

_-SH_

_You deserved that one,_ John huffed.

Indeed, finding the paddock proved easier than getting Sherlock out of the mass of the white, sleepy bodies of the sheep. John needed to jump into the paddock with him, to help push and pull, both sheep and Sherlock, who was, for some reason, extremely suspicious of them and their intentions. By the end of it, Sherlock’s shoes, dress trousers and coat were muddy beyond repair, his gelled curls a hilarious riot, and his pride more than a little stomped on.

It was surreal, seeing him like this. After more than a day of worrying, travelling, imaging, wondering, it was anticlimactic to find the man here, battered beyond recognition, in the middle of the bloody Scottish nowhere, among a flock of sheep.

So surreal that laughter bubbled in his throat.

Sherlock joined him, the chocolate baritone turning light as the breeze, as the light of the setting sun streaked his hair orange, and pink and golden.

“How many bloody patches did you slap on this time?”

“None!”

“Then what were you doing here?”

“Investigating. Obviously”

“I learned about the case, but what did the sheep have to do with it? Although got to admit, that one looks quite aggressive, maybe that’s the one doing the threatening”

“Oh, I don’t think the ram is responsible, I’d bet on a ewe” The smile over Sherlock’s lips dimmed. “My brother called. Said you were coming”

John slumped back to the here and now. He kicked a small, brown pebble away with his shoe. “Of course he did”

Sherlock started down the path to the manor, and John fell in step beside him. The light was gone.

“Why did you leave?”

“I changed my mind. About the case”

“You could have taken me with you, you know”

“No time”

“No time”, John repeated, the words bitter in his mouth.

“Well, since you’re here anyway”, Sherlock waved a dismissive hand.

“You sound disappointed”, John snapped. It felt like fighting a losing fight.

Sherlock’s shoulders tensed, then eased, then tensed again as they coiled that tiny bit inwards. “I need to _think_ John”

“I’m not stopping you. I thought I was helping you, all this while. Or was that just fun, having the fool  run the errands for you while you acted all clever?” He mocked. He was pushing it. But he had to understand.

“ _Of course not!”,_ Sherlock threw his hands up, turning around to face him. “I just can’t _think_ anymore. Cannot get my brain to produce any logical result when you are around. And it’s frustrating. It’s the most _infuriating_ thing to have happened to me, John, and you are the cause of it”

John blinked. The words were not meant to hurt him; Sherlock was not attacking him. If anything, he looked to be, in his own way, on the verge of tears.

“I needed to do this. On my own. To solve it. That’s why I left”

John opened his mouth to speak, but Sherlock beat him to it, his voice gravelly. “But you don’t understand, do you? That I can’t think when you’re around because how can I possibly concentrate when all my mental capacities are trained on who may have a knife, a gun, who may be a spy for _him,_ which next move will send us right into his _trap._ You don’t get it, do you? Normal people can deal with it, _sentiment_ , but _I_ can’t. I can’t. It’s… It’s the grit in a sensitive instrument, the crack in the lens. It was my fault, what happened. My stupidity. Letting my guard down, underestimating him. How can I possibly keep playing games when I fear that every second of you being associated with me will be your last? That my next mistake will be-” He cut himself off as if stung.

John understood. And when Sherlock did not run away but patiently matched his slower stride, as miserable as a wet cat, he understood something else, too.

_We’re more alike than you think, you and I._

 

__

 

##  *** * *  
**

 

“Where will you be?”, Mairi was saying to Sherlock, her voice clear through the door.

“We will just mingle and wait. You will do as we discussed, if the plan is to go as it should”

John leaned against the tiled bathroom wall. Of course, he had been given the same room as Sherlock, and they would have to share the double bed, a prospect that did nothing to help Sherlock’s already foul mood. But there was no other free room, anyway, given the number of guests who had arrived, and those still arriving.

John ran a hand through his hair, tried to style his growing fringe away from his eye. He had been dressed and ready for a while now, but facing Sherlock meant he first had to get past the lump in his throat. There were things he needed to say. Things he wasn’t sure he should.

He could not say he had not been warned. That night at Angelo’s, the very first, Sherlock had been perfectly clear on the matter. And kept proving his disinterest in any affair, or _romantic entanglement_ as he scornfully called relationships, ever since. Naturally, he meant what he had said a few hours ago too, about sentiment being a predicament to him, a handicap to the workings of his mind. But he _had_ said sentiment nonetheless. In relation to John.

Then of course, he had also not uttered another word to him since, avoiding to so much as to look at him, as they returned to the manor, to discuss the details of that night’s plan with Mairi, her fiancé and parents. Her suspected blackmailer was expected to in some way make an appearance that night, armed with nothing but bad intentions. Sherlock had identified him as Mairi’s previous relationship, a rather formidable businessman, with a reputation in the City which preceded him, especially when it came to the various means with which he reportedly achieved his business aims. They would need to catch him red-handed, for other proof was, obviously, lovingly erased to cover his tracks.

But John could not help feeling that Sherlock’s words in the paddock were only half the picture. The rest was painted in the sorrowful caramel tones of his violin playing at night. With the crimson of the beaten thug’s blood. The pure, innocent white of Sherlock’s fear, and the bandages around his knuckles the night when he had held his hand.

John refused to believe there was no other way. That their partnership was irrevocably damaged, because it was now affecting Sherlock’s Work. Yes, the blasted Work came first, but perhaps, if Sherlock knew…

He gathered the courage to step out of the bathroom just as Mairi was leaving. “Oh, lovely”, she smiled at him. “Are you two coming to the party together, then?”

“Um”, John cleared his throat.

It was Sherlock who said yes.

“Then, one of you has to wear a kilt. House rules. Not too modern or inclusive, I know, but try telling my dad that”, she rolled her eyes.

Sherlock looked between at John, at himself, and then back to Mairi. He looked terrified at the prospect of not being in his good, clean, dress clothes.

_Makes sense, after the sheep._

“You said your surname was Watson, right?”, Mairi said, but the suggestion in her tone was not particularly encouraging.

“Er, yeah?”

“Good. You’re the Scottish one then. You wear it. Sorry”

“But I don’t even ha-”

“I’ll ask Tom to lend you one. Should be about your size” She smirk-smiled again, and left.

“Looks like I have no choice”, he said, looking beseechingly at Sherlock.

“Nope”

Half an hour later, in a black, white, and purple kilt lent to him by Mairi’s younger brother, he followed Sherlock to the manor’s spacious ballroom. Music was already playing, and the room kept filling with guests every moment that past, friends of Mairi and her fiancé, as well as of the family.

Sherlock found the advantageous corner he was looking for, close to the buffet, and once they had occupied it, brought John a glass of red wine and treated himself to a Bellini. John wanted to roll his eyes fondly. He didn’t. Kept his gaze on his feet, slowly rocking his weight from his heels to his toes.

“So… What are we waiting for?”

“Anything suspicious. Although I do have some ideas…”

“Why would that man do anything tonight? With all these people around?”

“You saw the messages. He is clearly jealous. Her moving on is not something he appreciated”

“Yes but…”

“Sentiment, John. Sentiment is the bane of logic, and is so in this case too”

“Yeah. So you’ve said”

Sherlock hummed absentmindedly, his gaze surveying the space around them.

“So… How long have we got?”

“Until we have reached the point when any other person’s guard would be down. Will be tedious”

“Yeah…”

The lights dimmed, and Sherlock’s head snapped up in alarm. John made to reach for his arm, but stopped when Sherlock’s eyes bore again into his. Before he could speak, bright-toned fiddle tunes had exploded in the room, and Sherlock had looked away.

“Are you alright?”

Sherlock nodded over the rim of his glass.  

They watched as the first ceilidh song came and went, transitioning to a messily danced polka. There was cheering and clapping and laughter from the younger guests when the pairs stopped with the music. A waltz began next, swaying its melody lazily.

“Sherlock, look. I… I know it’s not the best time to do this, but-”

“No, you’d be right”

“That’s a first”, John snorted.

“Well, I _was_ excessively harsh”, Sherlock raised his chin haughtily.  “My mind’s shortcomings are, after all, not your fault. And, I assure you that when I said sentiment with regards to the adversary effect you have on my logical thought, I meant… Nothing- nothing beyond what I said. In context. Of. Um”, he waved a hand in nonchalant dismissal and took another sip of his champagne.

John looked at him. Really looked at him. The haughty cheekbones, the way he had let that same curl that fell over his temple when he played the violin, whimsically do the same now. The bridge of his nose was wrinkled, giving him away, as it did every time he was confused or troubled. John paused over the long fingers’ elegant grip on the flimsy stem of the champagne glass, the tiny scar on the right of his bottom lip, over the constellation of moles on the pale column of his neck. The place on his cheeks where his dimples would be, if he smiled. How his eyes were dimmed and cast low, as if ashamed. And so infinitely sad. Sometimes, when Sherlock called himself a sociopath John wanted to cup his face, and show it to him in a mirror and make him see. Just see the beauty of his eyes.

How could these eyes be anything but human?

How could this brilliant mind not believe it also had a heart?

John was struck by how absurd it all was. How simple.

“What if I told you… It’s okay if ‘sentiment’ meant something else?”

It did not matter to him how it was, as long as it _was_ : together. If Sherlock did things differently, felt things differently, John would not mind. He did not want to change him. Any part of him that Sherlock could give him, he would have it. It would be enough. It would be a marvel. Just like Sherlock’s mind. The mind that was so confused, because it thought it was so isolated in its difference. So alone.

Not anymore.

“Dance with me”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone leaving kudos, bookmarking, and commenting.


	4. Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A scare, and finally THEY TALK!

“Dance with me”

A resigned smile on the Cupid’s bow lips. A fold in the universe itself.

“You don’t know how to dance, John”

A truth without a sting. A fact. That was how the brilliant mind of the man beside him saw the world. Facts, evidence, pieces of a puzzle, quivering secrets under his fingertips.

There was no place in that sensitive instrument for grit, no room for a crack in the lens of his vision.

That was how the mind of the man beside him worked.

But it was not this man’s _mind_ that he wanted.

He was tired of facts anyway.

 _No, I don’t_ _know how to dance_ , he thought. _Not with_ your _steps_.

“Then show me”

_And I’ll show you how to follow mine._

“John, I….”  Incredulity. Doubt.

“Just once. Can’t be that bad, can it?”

He expected Sherlock to say no, or huff under his breath in that way of his that meant ‘idiot’.

Sherlock placed his glass on the buffet behind them. Offered his hand. Like the lion presenting its wounded paw.

John stepped closer. Held him.

The knuckles beneath his fingers were free from the bandages now, the abrasions scabbed over. He ran is thumb over them. Felt a frisson go through Sherlock’s body at the touch, and held his breath. When nothing changed, and Sherlock stayed, he soothingly lowered towards the taller man’s chest. Sherlock let him, curling his body over and around his, the blond head and the raven one barely touching as if in silent agreement.

Sherlock guided John’s free hand to his shoulder, covering it with his palm for a moment before he cupped the side of John’s waist.

The song was already in its middle. Sherlock latched on its tune, counted under his breath. John moved closer to be able to listen.

Sherlock’s torso and his arm around him was what eased him into the steps before they were made. He pulled him close when John had to stepped forward, pushed him back when it was Sherlock’s turn to do so. Every once in a while, he counted to keep their rhythm going.

John smiled with the lips whispering against his ear.

“This is the box step, John”

Orbiting.

When John was slow to catch up, Sherlock waited. When Sherlock changed the angle of their steps, John read it through the muscles and bones shifting and rippling beneath his hand over his shoulder-blade. He stepped on his toes only once. Sherlock did not mind.

“Not bad, am I?”

“Tolerable” John chuckled. Leaned closer still, until he could press his head against Sherlock’s collarbone, feel his chest expand and fall under his lips.

Sherlock’s grip tightened.

_Hope._

“Are you still afraid?”, John breathed.

Music and lights went out.

 

##  *** * *  
**

 

The guests’ confused murmurs grew around them. People laughed when they stumbled in the dark, understanding the sudden silent darkness as an imminent surprise or just a power outage. Blue light from mobile screens began to pop up amidst the crowd, like fireflies through the night, and Mairi’s father was heard hurrying by, barking orders to the house staff.

Sherlock tensed beneath his grip.

“Sherlock? What is happening?”

 “She’s doing it after all”, Sherlock murmured. He yanked himself free, ripping something from John in the process, raw and rooted deep.  

_Just a burden._

Before he could react, Sherlock darted for the hallway through the heavy oak doors. John could barely make out his silhouette running in the trembling, flickering lights of candles and torches and mobile phone screens. The ghost feeling of Sherlock’s body against his kept him still.

Sherlock was right: He was but an obstacle _._ If he was gone, Sherlock would not fear. Would not suffer as he did now, torn between sentiment and mind. Would not be distracted as he had been every day for months, would not turn down cases, would not be so morose and quiet, or so out of his mind, beating a suspect to death, no, that was not who Sherlock was. Sherlock was free, and with that exhilarated glint in his eyes, feeding off of the kick of adrenaline and the excitement of danger, the thrill of the chase and the puzzle.

Sometimes things just can’t work. John should have known that.

He looked around, setting his jaw and sniffing, once, his left hand clenching into a fist at his side. No matter how much he wished for Sherlock’s heart, it was perfectly content where it was. He swallowed, nodded to himself, and decided to march out of the room and retire for the night.

A nearby phone’s flash flared and blinded him, and when he pressed his eyes closed, all he could see was red.   

_Red._

‘I will burn the _heart_ out of you’

The hairs at the back of his head stood on end, and cold sweat budded against his collar.

‘I have been reliably informed that I don’t have one’

He gasped when someone bumped into him in the semi-darkness.

He tried to rub and open his eyes, but all he saw was the wavering reflections on the walls, the sloshing and echo.

_‘I was afraid’_

‘You’ve rather shown your hand there, Doctor Watson’

_A red dot for the mind._

_A red dot for the heart._

“Oh my god. Sherlock!”

Wading through the throngs of increasingly agitated guests proved more difficult than he thought, elbows and backs blocking his way, their owners tutting and swearing when he shoved them aside. Sherlock had not told him why this was a seven, and he had no desire to find out through the worst possible scenario.

At last he burst in the hall, after stumbling on an armchair and leaning against a wall to regain his balance. He could make out the room feebly, with what moonlight made it in through the windows. “Sherlock?”

There was no telling where his madman had gone, or what was happening. When his gut told him to go outside, he did, trusting what forgotten reflexes had remained in his mind since his time in the Army.

Running up a dirt road to a paddock in the middle of nowhere in a kilt, in the dark, was trickier than he had imagined. He scraped his knees and palms to get to the top of the hillock, as he searched angrily for footholds at full speed. When he looked down from the top, the lights of the manor were back on, and people were spilling to the garden outside, calling for the names of those who had not been spotted yet in the commotion.

“Not a magnificent plan, but it worked”

John whipped around, his fist already connecting with Sherlock’s arm before he could register who it was. “Warn a man!”

“Ow”. Sherlock dusted his suit jacket, and tucked his shirt in better over his hip. His hair was somehow intact from his dash, that lonely curl still over his forehead.

“Sorry”

John looked between the manor and the detective, and then at the quiet path he had just sprinted to reach him, at the emptiness around them. “You git!”

“What?”

“I thought you were in danger - Jesus!”, he folded over, pressing his palms against his knees.

“What kind of danger, John?”

“You dare ask me that?”

“Fine”

“Not fine. _Shut up_ ”

Sherlock stayed silent until John’s breaths found a normal rhythm. The commotion from the manor had increased. John strained to make out the words of a new round of shouting, and when he leaned too close to the edge of the hillock, it was Sherlock’s grip on his suit jacket that pulled him back.

“Why are they calling Mairi’s name? Where is she?”

“I let her go”

John turned his head to take in a solemn, guarded Sherlock.

“Let her?”

“She just fled with her ex. There was no real blackmailer, John. That person was, indeed, her previous relationship, but they had set up the ruse together -the threats, his reputation, that he could try to harm her tonight. You see, her engagement to David was a profitable business plan for her family, necessary to save its fortune. Mairi’s father and David had agreed on a joined investment, since he would become one of the family soon. For Mairi, marrying him was the logical thing to do. But as you see…”

“So why was it a seven?”

“It never was. When I arrived, I discovered that she was the one who had set everything up. Calling me here was a risk, but a good way to avoid suspicions as per the truth of her claims”

“So you played along”

“Yes, while in truth planning to stop her. There are a number of illegal means she and her ex have taken in setting this up. Nothing major of course; fake documents, fake reports to the police, and so on”

“Then why did you let her go with him?”

He watched as Sherlock sighed, his breath a puff of wispy white air in the cold. “I… I don’t know”, he said, as if surprised by the words leaving his lips. “I don’t really think I could have stopped her, if I tried”, he amended.

John watched his brow furrow, the wrinkles forming over the bridge of his nose. John knew Sherlock’s mind was grappling with itself, and waited.

“It is the most unscientific thing I can say, but it _felt_ wrong”. Sherlock bounced on his heels a little, his quick breaths staccati of white puffs of air in the cold. “I’ll always be afraid”, he murmured when he at last stood still.

John waited, chewing on the inside of his cheek, but Sherlock shrugged and kept his gaze to the manor, keeping him at arm’s length. “We should probably return”

“And what will we tell _them_?”

“The truth, I suppose”

“Good, then guess we’ll have to find another place to stay the night”

“You’ll help us avoid that”

“Right”

John tried to smile, but could not manage anything more than a forced grin.

 

##  *** * *  
**

 

They started down the path again, for the second time that day.

If Sherlock would never stop fearing, then it was all in vain. It was all over. The end of an era, not quite in the way he would have hoped.

So much for hoping.

A flock of people gathered around them when they returned, pestering them with questions about Mairi. Her parents were inconsolable already, before they could hear Sherlock’s narration. David listened silently, but the more he heard about the story the more did his expression darken. “What do you mean ‘you let her go’?”, he finally spat through gritted teeth.

“She made it clear that she was with the man she loved. If someone was to make her stay, then that would not be me”, Sherlock shrugged.

“You… Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“Well, I _did_ solve the case” Sherlock retorted flippantly.

John saw David’s shoulder and elbow pulling back before Sherlock did. He stepped between them, and a crack was heard a moment later. Blood spilled from his broken nose down to his lips, and the staggered backwards, his back colliding with Sherlock’s chest. He could not see, but felt Sherlock’s arms close around him, holding him steady. Felt him seething, his body coiling like a spring.

“ _You_ -”

“Sh’lock. ‘sokay”, he murmured, clutching his hands over his throbbing face. He heard Mairi’s father deriding David, people rushing to fetch towels and ice packets. It was out of focus. He shook his head, but the echo in his ears remained. It made him dizzy.

Sherlock helped him up the stairs, and had him sit on the divan by the curved window. He pressed an ice pack into his hands, and, before his nose could go cold, set it back in place. John grunted through the pain, but did not protest.

“Don’t do that again”, Sherlock grumbled, stopping his agitated pacing to sit beside him, watching like a hawk lest John dare remove the icepack.

“Do what?”, he slurred, sounding ingested and dizzier than he was.

“I don’t care how good it is, don’t do it”

_‘What you did. What you offered to do was. Um. Good’._

Grabbing Moriarty at the pool and telling him to run. Taking a punch for him now. Shooting the cabbie. John blinked. “Is that… what all this… has been about?”

“Yes”, Sherlock murmured. “Yes and no” He bit on his lower lip, inhaled sharply, as if he had decided. “Before… Before we danced you said…”

John blinked at him, unable to make his mouth produce a single sound, even if Sherlock’s eyes were pleading him.

“Nevermind” Sherlock stood up, but John caught his wrist before he could walk away, balancing the icepack over his nose one-handed.

“Yes. I remember. I meant it”

Sherlock looked away “Even if you did…”, he sighed, a self-deprecating smirk distorting his face. “I don’t even know what that sentiment is, it is clearly incapacitating me, I have never felt so confused and unstable before, I-”

“It’s alright”, John tightened his grip, tugged.

“I will never not be afraid, John”

“Me neither”

Sherlock sat down again. There was a smudge of his blood over the crisp white shirt, and his gelled riot of curls had finally broken free of its restraints, and was streaked silver with the moonlight. His eyes were sad.

John removed the icepack, turned to face him better. “Sherlock… Would you be better if I was not here? If you had the cases on your own, if you knew I was safe?”

“No”

“Then what do you want?”

“ _I don’t know!_ ”, Sherlock exclaimed. And then again more quietly. “I don’t know”

John brushed his thumb over the scarred knuckles. Over and over. Trying to come up with a solution, a way to make Sherlock feel less anguish, because he hated it, he hated that he had caused this. “Do you perhaps want us to-”

“I feel lost without you”

John looked up.  

“I don’t want us to be apart, John. I do not know how else to explain what I feel without you. I’m just… Lost. As if… As if from the entire universe of billions, trillions of atoms, the only ones that could ever fit mine, are yours”

* * *

 


	5. Epilogue

 

They did not speak much, after.

They barely let go, for a while. But when Sherlock started going about his nightly routine, John let him. He understood that Sherlock needed normalcy, something to anchor himself with, so only  watched as Sherlock moved back and forth from bedroom to bathroom, fuss over his curls, and finally returned from changing into pajamas with a sheepish look on his face. John felt his body tingle with fatigue, previously burdened muscles a heavy, blissful mass; like the aftermath of an adrenaline kick, but encompassing the whole of him. He knew the feeling only fleetingly: it was not just relief, but contentment.

Sherlock blinked at him, puzzled to be stared at for so long. John smiled.

They had all the time in the world.

They slept side by side, their hands woven together between them. When John woke from an unsettling dream, Sherlock was looking at him, murmuring his name, his thumb drawing circles over his wrist, where he still held him. “Sleep”.

The journey home was not any easier than John’s journey to reach the godforsaken place, and Sherlock as not particularly happy during the flight, especially, curling up as much as he could in his seat and using his scarf as a pillow. John soon realised that it wasn’t about boredom or the crammed space, but that the altitude and the change in pressure in his ears made him dizzy. He guided his grumpy detective to rest his head on his shoulder for the landing.

221B was cold and messy -as he had left it, in his hurry. Neither of them cared. They ordered Indian takeaway and ate on the sofa, Sherlock facing John and curled up on his side, in the comfiest pyjamas he owned, his bare feet pushed beneath John’s thighs for warmth. They had done that before. But it wasn’t the same now.

He saw the disappointment in Sherlock’s eyes when he said he would be going upstairs, the way he nodded and turned his face away a little too quickly.

This is why he was even quicker to change for the night and appear at his bedroom’s door when Sherlock had already lied down. “Can I?”

“John” it was surprised, and breathy, and everything a yes would be. He stayed. The next night. And the next. He stayed until he could not remember the last night he slept alone.

There was a sense of togetherness in the sheets that smelled of them both, in waking up to Sherlock’s soft rustling or snoring in the middle of the night, in feeling a warm sleepy mass dip the mattress beside him. And it seeped into their everyday life, and the marvel was, how they both let it.

When they watched telly. John would guide Sherlock’s head to rest on his shoulder, or his lap. Running his fingers through the thicket of raven curls, twirling them and messing them up, just because he enjoyed the ticklish feeling of them against his palm. Once, Sherlock purred and butted against his touch like a cat. John became obsessed with trying to make him do it again.

Sherlock was the first that allowed touching in public, linking his arm with John’s when they were walking through Hyde Park once. It was an invitation, there for him to accept. From then on, the rest was easy to follow.  John would push gently at the small of Sherlock’s back to keep him grounded through the inane Yard and press meetings, through anything that made Sherlock tense and frown. He’d hold his hand on the cab ride home from cases, squeezing as they both descended from their adrenaline rush, muscle heavy in its tired throbbing. He learned Sherlock’s body just by this, learned what the tiniest detail of its any change meant. And he did not doubt that Sherlock, with his brilliant mind, did the same.

It took a month for Sherlock to crawl closer to him in bed at night, and lay a questioning hand on his chest. John folded him close, pressing a silent kiss onto Sherlock’s forehead through the night.

He started actively encouraging Sherlock’s stealing from his plate, in a new attempt to ensure he was healthy and within the normal weight range for his height. Sherlock in turn played the violin when John had nightmares. He adjusted with the chores to help him, allowing a kind of domesticity to exist, that, it seemed, wanted to do so before but was too afraid to. John did not want to change or press him, knowing just how dull Sherlock found a number of everyday things, but he found that they slotted to each other’s new habits and ways just as they’d done the first time they moved. They still bickered, and disagreed, and sometimes it was impossible, and frustrating, and just too much. They still got over it, but this time sooner, pouts and petty insults falling away to apologies, sincere and shy in that tender baritone.

It was not just that Sherlock now said please, and sorry and thank you. They talked more. Sleepy chatting in the morning, texts to check on each other when they were apart. Play-arguing over silly telly shows, planning what they’d make for dinner, just talking to fill the silence, wrap each other in the company of their voice.

His git also stopped feeling the need to be as stubborn: it took some nagging, but he agreed to buy a minifridge for his experiments. On his own, he stopped stealing most of John’s things he would steal before -he would ask instead, or at least he’d try to. Even if he still was hesitant around sevens and avoided eights and nines, alert to perceiving danger and threat where it couldn’t be, he did not try to run away without John again.

The smiles that followed John’s touches grew, the ease with which he accepted the care he was offered. And John was happy. Happy that what he gave to this man, what they gave to each other, made Sherlock open up to showing the vulnerable, human, sleep-soft and messy-hair, and late-night, and insecure side of him. 

The leaves turned green, and stronger. The days lengthened, the sun’s rays slanting against their windows, filling 221B with zesty-warm orange light. They did not want talk about relationships, about physical intimacy or identity. It did not seem to need talking about: on both their part, as John could feel and see, they were devoted, a couple not different to any other. He knew of the possibility that Sherlock may want them to try something else too, but did not live their life waiting for this to happen. If it never did, he would not mind. What he felt for this man was different to anything else he had ever felt, for any other man or woman in his life. If they never were romantically involved, if there never was sex in the equation… John would still be a man fulfilled, and happy. He needed Sherlock, and only Sherlock. Nothing else.

So when the first kiss came, as a goodnight wish, Sherlock’s cheeks blushing and his pupils all blown wide, he understood just how much it meant.

Exploration was slow. And then it was too fast, desire breaking through to the surface, desire John had been feeling for much longer than even he had understood. Sherlock was no paling virgin, aware of his wants and needs, if he still needed to experiment as to the particularities of what and how, to adjust to the sensations and their novelty. But still, there was an honest innocence about him, the way with which he treated that aspect of their relationship. To John it seemed old-fashioned, and unexpectedly romantic. He had not expected how erotic it could be to be kissed on the inside of his wrist or the arch of his foot, to have his back traced by a musician’s fingers as if they could tap onto hidden notes under his skin, to have his scar cupped by a careful hand every time they made love. “It brought you to me, John”, Sherlock answered when John asked him about it.

Six months after the case in Scotland, summer just having bloomed even in the green-less heart of London, the windows open to fight the heat, Sherlock returned to the kitchen where they had been having breakfast, with a simple, heavily stamped letter.

“What’s this?”, John took a sip of his coffee, trying to read the address on the back of the envelope.

Sherlock grinned, and left the letter by John’s hand to remove his dressing gown. It was getting too hot even for his impeccable style, flannels and boxer briefs becoming the norm, to John’s mirth. “Mairi. She sends her friendly greetings, and wishes us to know that all has been resolved, at last. Her parents have accepted her partner, and David stepped back, but agreed to help the family stand back on its feet economically. We are invited to the wedding in August”

“I am not wearing a kilt again”

“Pah. It looked good on you”

“It did, huh?”

“Shh”

“Alright, but you will have to elaborate on that later” John laughed, looking up to meet Sherlock’s smiling eyes.

“Dance with me”

“What?”

“Dance with me, John”

“What, here? Now?” But he was already getting up.

Sherlock held him close, helping him find the form and steps once more, as he hummed a slow waltz tune under his breath.  John closed his eyes, resting his forehead over Sherlock’s clavicle, hearing the steady beating of his heart.

“Do you know I love you?”, the baritone voice murmured against his ear.

“I know. I knew”

Sherlock pressed his lips against his hairline, and John tightened his grip around him.

“From the entire universe of billions, trillions of atoms, the only ones that could ever fit mine, are yours”, John whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There. They are working on their relationship, and are happy, and have each other... I'm such a fluff-monster when I want to be XD
> 
> And so, this story is now over. It is honestly such a melancholy feeling because this collaboration with chainedtothemirror has been one of the most beautiful creative experiences I have ever had, and I thank her for everything from the bottom of my heart, not least for illustrating my fic with her beautiful art. If you have not already, please follow her on tumblr ([@chained-to-the-mirror](https://chained-to-the-mirror.tumblr.com/)) she is a wonderful artist and person and deserves all the love!
> 
> Thank you to everyone reading, leaving comments or kudos, bookmarking, or sharing/reblogging this story. Seeing your reactions to what our crazy boys have done this time, or how this story has made you feel keeps me going, even when times are rough. 
> 
> If you have Johnlock prompts for me, for fics or ficlets, please do get in touch (tumblr: [@theconsultinglinguist](https://theconsultinglinguist.tumblr.com/)). I also post updates to my works there so, do have a look if you want to see what I'm up to <3


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